Manpower shortage leaving some IDF West Bank operations undone, activists say
In letter to Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, several groups claim a third of the troops deployed to area are not combat soldiers, are unqualified for roles
A third of the Israel Defense Forces soldiers deployed to the West Bank are not combat trained, and as a result, military operations are being curtailed, activist groups told lawmakers on a top defense committee.
Several organizations sent the letter to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in light of the ongoing stagnation of legislation to draft members of the ultra-Orthodox community, also known as Haredim, into the army.
The Haredi community’s leadership is vehemently opposed to young Haredi men serving in the military, fearing they will be secularized, and figures presented to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee at the end of last month showed that almost all ultra-Orthodox men called up for military service in recent months have declined to serve.
Israelis who do serve, however, say the decades-long arrangement of mass exemptions for Haredim unfairly burdens the rest of them, a sentiment that has intensified since the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught and the ensuing war, in which 844 soldiers have been killed and some 300,000 citizens called up to reserve duty.
Among those who signed the letter were a group for national religious reservist soldiers, a pro-draft group formed by members of the ruling Likud party, the right-wing Im Tirtzu organization, and the My Israel activism group.
In it, they wrote that information they have gathered shows that a third of the forces deployed in the West Bank are not combat units.
The West Bank, they noted, is divided among six military divisions, each with three IDF battalions.
“In each division, one battalion is not combat,” they wrote, according to a Sunday report by Channel 12 news. “These are reservist men and women, who take upon themselves the mission of protecting the first line of fire, even though they are not trained for it.”
They said the arrangement is “dangerous to them, to the [Israeli] residents” of the West Bank “and the residents of the nearby cities.”
According to the letter’s authors, “there are activities that it is simply not possible to assign to these forces, and, as a result, they are not being carried out at all.”
They said such activities include patrols in Palestinian villages, arrest operations, weapons searches, and uncovering money used for terror activities.
Channel 12 did not say when the letter was submitted to the committee.
According to the report, confidential meetings of the committee have also heard from official sources that there are military activities that are not being carried out due to a lack of manpower.
The IDF declined to comment on the allegations about its manpower or the nature of forces deployed in the West Bank.
The committee has held 29 meetings on a proposed Haredi draft law, the network said.
Earlier this month, ruling Likud party spokesman Guy Levy promised the passage of a long-delayed bill regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment.
Speaking with Radio Kol Barama, Levy said that his party is advocating for the needs of the ultra-Orthodox to the degree that “there are complaints [among the Likud base] that we are fighting for the Haredi public more than for our own public.”
Despite that, Levy insisted that Likud wants to pass “a real enlistment law” that will “bring about the enlistment of wide swaths of the Haredi public because the army really needs that.”
This past year, some 70,000 Haredi males were listed as eligible for military service. The IDF sent out 10,000 initial draft orders to members of the Haredi community in several waves between July 2024 and March 2025. According to Lt. Col. Avigdor Dickstein, head of the Haredi branch of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, only 205 of those who have received orders have actually enlisted.
The Knesset’s ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties have long demanded a bill enshrining the exemption of the yeshiva students from military service in law, though one was struck down by the High Court last summer. It has also been held up in the Knesset due to objections by both opposition MKs and members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.
Following the passage of the 2025 state budget in late March, UTJ’s rabbinic leadership gave Netanyahu three months to pass the legislation.
The military has said that it currently requires some 12,000 new soldiers — 75 percent of whom would be combat troops — but can only accommodate the enlistment of an additional 3,000 ultra-Orthodox soldiers this year, due to their need for special conditions. That would be in addition to some 1,800 Haredi soldiers who are already drafted annually.
The issue has come to a head in light of recent High Court rulings demanding an end to blanket exemptions, and public pressure has risen, due to the manpower shortages caused by the long-running war.
The Times of Israel Community.